Airline Optimisers by PDC
Crew and aircraft, optimised end to end with Airline Optimisers by PDC. From seasonal plans to day-of-operations recovery, four purpose-built optimisers built on shared data.
Running an airline means solving a chain of hard planning problems. Thousands of flights must become legal, cost-efficient crew pairings. That work must be assigned to real people, fairly, legally and with the resilience to absorb disruption. Aircraft tails must be assigned months ahead, and when weather, technical issues or delays put the plan to the test, the schedule must be repaired in minutes. Each of these problems is too large for any planner to be confident they have found a good answer by hand.
PDC solves them with four purpose-built optimisers. In FlightCrew, the Pairing Optimiser turns your open flying into cost-efficient, legal pairings, and the Roster Optimiser assigns them to your crew, producing rosters that are legal, balanced and demonstrably fair. The FlightTime Optimiser builds and refines tail assignments long before departure, and the FlightOps Solver repairs disruption in minutes while protecting the rest of the operation. Each pair works from shared data, so pairings flow straight into rostering with no re-keying, and the plan you make is the plan you operate.
Why choose PDC Airline Optimisers
Lower cost across the operation
Legal by design
Regulatory and union rules, rest and duty limits and maintenance requirements are respected as plans are built, not checked afterwards, so far fewer problems reach the roster or the day of operations.
Fairness you can prove
Crew workload is balanced against each individual’s real history and explicit targets, making fairness measurable and easy to defend.
Days of planner time returned.
Work that consumes days of skilled effort is produced in a single run, freeing planners and controllers for judgement and exceptions.
Decisions backed by evidence.
Simulate a new base, a policy change or a fleet move, score every run against KPIs with before-and-after values, and compare costed scenarios side by side before anyone commits.
Planners stay in control.
Runs execute in the background without locking the system, solutions can be reviewed in a simulation first, and nothing touches the plan uninvited.
Built for your operation, not a template
Your costs, rules, agreements and priorities are yours to define and maintain. Once a contract is signed, the real tailoring begins: a PDC Supporter works with you to test and tune your cost setups, rules, preferences and optimisation logic until they reflect your operation, and you receive training and documentation written for the way you work. Whichever authority you operate under, your regulatory and union rule set is implemented as part of the startup process, and that work is always included. Typical implementation is measured in weeks.
Support that stays with you
Going live is the start of the relationship, not the end of it. You keep continuous, dedicated PDC Support alongside dedicated optimiser application specialists all the way, so there is always someone who knows both the product and your operation. Those specialists come from airline crew and operations backgrounds themselves, so they understand your problems from the inside. And when you need a speciality capability, paid development can fast-track your feature requests into the product.
A product that never stands still
The optimisers evolve continuously, with a new release almost every month. The direction is set with our customers, not just for them: regular interactions with the airlines that use the optimisers identify where to improve and where to innovate, and the optimiser team attends every User Group Meeting, held each year in Copenhagen and in Bangkok, to hear it first-hand.
Deployment and security
Every optimiser can be hosted by PDC or deployed in your own environment, whichever suits your operation. PDC A/S is certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2022, the international standard for information security management, so your data is handled within a certified security framework.
Why PDC
The optimisers are built by PDC A/S, the Copenhagen-based software company with 36 years of experience in advanced planning and decision support. PDC planning solutions are used in 67 countries, and PDC is present across time zones with global offices to support its customers.
Licence what you need
Each optimiser can be licensed on its own or together with its counterpart: the Pairing and Roster Optimisers as a single automated crew pipeline, and the FlightTime Optimiser and FlightOps Solver on one shared engine for planning and operations. Start where the value is greatest for your operation. A dedicated ACMI module for the Roster Optimiser is available as an add-on.
Optimiser for Crew
Pairing Optimiser
Legal, cost-efficient crew pairings, built automatically.
A pairing is a sequence of flights and connecting activities that starts and ends at a crew base. Building good ones means covering every open flight, keeping every duty legal, positioning crew where they are needed and controlling the cost of hotels and deadheads, all at once. The number of possible combinations is far beyond what anyone can evaluate by hand; the Pairing Optimiser explores vastly more of the solution space, so it consistently outperforms manual planning. Give it your open flying, positions, fleet and date range, and it returns complete pairings that are legal, priced against your own cost model and ready to roster.
Why it wins
Lower crew cost
Duty days, time away from base, hotels, deadheads, aircraft changes, night stops and split duties are continuously weighed, with cost setups that vary by base, crew group or aircraft type so the model reflects your economics.
Legal by design
Duty and flight duty period limits, rest requirements, connection and turnaround limits and your regulatory and union rules are respected as each pairing is formed.
Complete coverage
Open flying is treated as work that must be covered; the optimiser works to leave nothing stranded and flags where coverage is not possible under the current rules, so you can act early.
Fine control over positioning
Allow or prevent deadheads, distinguish own-aircraft from other carriers, and control connections; positioning is used only where it genuinely reduces total cost or unlocks coverage.
Test ideas before you commit
Simulation mode lets you run scenarios in parallel and disable specific rules for what-if analysis without touching live data, so a new base or a relaxed duty rule gets an evidenced answer.
Understand every result. A guided wizard walks you through each run, a real-time monitor shows live cost indicators, and KPI and cost reports plus Gantt cost mapping let you drill into and defend every pairing.
At a glance
What it does
Builds legal multi-leg pairings that cover your open flying at the lowest practical cost
Who it is for
Crew planning, crew control and network planning teams at airlines of every size
Key output
An optimised set of pairings that feeds straight into the Roster Optimiser
Part of
FlightCrew by PDC; runs within FlightCrew and shares its data and access model
Licensing
Available together with the Roster Optimiser or on its own
Frequently asked questions
Will it cover all of my open flying?
It works to cover all matching open flying and highlights where coverage is not possible under the current rules, so you can act early.
Can we model our own costs and rules?
Yes. Your cost model and rule settings are yours to define and maintain, and your regulatory and union rule set is implemented with you as part of the startup process.
Can we monitor a run and use interim results?
Yes. A real-time monitor shows live cost indicators, run duration and diagnostics, and you can import an interim solution while the run continues.
Optimiser for Crew
Roster Optimiser
Legal, cost-efficient crew pairings, built automatically.
Once pairings exist, someone must decide who flies what. A good roster is legal for every individual, honours days off, rest, vacation and existing commitments, covers standby and reserve, and shares the workload fairly. The Roster Optimiser assigns pairings, standby duties and other activities to individual crew members and solves the whole problem at once. It looks backwards as well as forwards: crew who have recently carried a heavy load are given relief, while capacity is drawn from those with room.
Why it wins
Fairness you can prove
Block hours, duty hours, workdays, night stops, trip length, absence and pairing types are balanced against real history and explicit targets, with the figures visible in the plan summary, so the outcome is transparent and easy to justify to crew.
Legal by design
Rest, duty and days-off rules are respected as each roster is built.
Happier, better retained crew
Balanced, predictable rosters that honour days off and rest are a strong lever for crew satisfaction and retention, and the Roster Optimiser makes that outcome repeatable.
You define what good means
A weights profile you control balances days off, workload counters, pairing mix, layover stations, part-time and work-percentage targets, and can cost patterns you would rather avoid. Any setting, weight or cost can be relaxed for a single run to measure a policy before adopting it.
Resilience built in, not patched in
Standby requirements are expressed by station and period and reserve provision is under your control, protecting the operation against disruption without overspending on idle cover.
Reporting and insights
A guided wizard and real-time monitor keep planners in control; post-run KPIs, cost breakdowns, margin counters and Gantt views support review, with an optional custom reporting module for advanced analytics.
At a glance
What it does
Assigns work to crew to build legal, fair and balanced rosters for a period
Who it is for
Crew planning and crew control teams at airlines of every size
Key output
Complete, balanced rosters ready for review and publication
Part of
FlightCrew by PDC
Licensing
Available together with the Pairing Optimiser or on its own; dedicated ACMI module available as an add-on
Frequently asked questions
How does it make fairness objective?
It measures workload against each crew member’s history and explicit targets, and exposes the figures in the plan summary, so fairness is transparent rather than a matter of opinion.
Does it handle standby and reserve?
Yes. Standby requirements are expressed by station and period, and reserve provision is under your control, so resilience is built into the roster.
Can we control what fair means for us?
Yes. The weights profile lets you decide what to balance and how strongly, so the definition of a good roster is yours.
Optimiser for FlightTime
FlightTime Optimiser
Better tail assignments, proven before you commit. Build fleet rotations months ahead, test alternatives in safe simulations, and let the numbers pick the winner.
The optimiser assigns aircraft tails to flights across the fleet and date range you choose. A single selector sets how freely aircraft may swap: same type only, same IATA type, same aircraft family, or all types. Maintenance rules are considered at planning time, and existing maintenance activities are honoured as fixed events. For seasonal and standard-week planning, the rotation matrix lets you define one week of aircraft rotations per aircraft type and roll it out from a chosen start date.
Why it wins
Test ideas without risk
Named what-if simulations in the Simulation Explorer give every idea its own safe workspace, with full undo and a complete change log, so nothing is irreversible.
Flight-level schedule compare
See exactly which flights changed between a
simulation and the plan, or between two simulations, before accepting anything;
accepted changes write back to the plan or standard week and can issue schedule messages automatically.
Scenarios with scores attached
One setup can launch several runs with different penalty weightings, compared side by side with automatic before-and-after KPI summaries, so the best rotation is chosen on evidence, not instinct.
A fleet-size lever
A per-tail usage cost is built into every optimisation and KPI report, so the price of putting one more aircraft into service is always visible.
Tuned for planning
LIFO or FIFO turn preference, evening out airborne hours and landings across the fleet, historic hours and cycles, minimum turn-time reduction, and following the crew solution.
Plain-language controls
A dozen-plus levers sit in a single dialog, with an optimality gap and solve time limit per run. No scripting, no black box, and jobs run in the background while planners keep working.
At a glance
Purpose
Long-term fleet and tail assignment planning
Horizon
Seasons, months and standard weeks, in whole-day planning periods
Swap control
Four levels: same type, same IATA type, same family, all types
Simulation
Named what-if simulations with full undo and change log
Comparison
Flight-level schedule compare with write-back to plan or standard week
Scoring
Automatic KPI summary on every run, before and after.
Platform
Part of FlightTime by PDC
Frequently asked questions
Do planners lose control to the algorithm?
No. You set the penalties, rules and limits, and every solution lands where you choose: in a simulation for review, or in the plan when you decide.
What stops the optimiser from using too many aircraft?
A per-tail usage cost is part of both the optimisation and the KPI report, so bringing an extra aircraft into service always carries a visible price.
Does it respect maintenance?
Maintenance rules are considered during optimisation and existing maintenance activities are honoured as fixed events in the schedule.
Optimiser for FlightOps
FlightOps Solver
Recovery in minutes, with the impact measured with KPIs before it goes live. When disruption hits, the solver proposes a repaired schedule, scores it, and shows controllers exactly what it costs.
The FlightOps Solver runs on the same engine and the same schedule data as the FlightTime Optimiser, so planning and operations teams work in the same language and trust the same figures.
Why it wins
From alert to solution
The solver can watch operational alerts and launch a recovery run automatically within a rolling operational window, or controllers use the one-click Optimise action in the alert panel, pre-filled with disruption-tuned defaults from three hours back to the rest of the operational period ahead.
Recovery that thinks like a controller
A maximum delay bounds every proposal, delay penalties are priced per flight and per passenger-hour, delay codes are assigned, activating reserve aircraft carries its own penalty, maintenance is honoured, and breaking crew connections can be penalised or the solver told to follow the crew solution.
Three scenarios per click
Multi-run produces a base run, a low-delay high-swap variant and a high-delay low-swap variant, compared side by side, so the controller picks a trade-off rather than accepting a verdict.
Proof on every run
Around a dozen KPIs are reported automatically, including aircraft and type changes, total delay, cancellations, reserve usage, cabin factor and total cost, plus the alert count before and after. Solutions can be reviewed in a simulation before they touch the operation.
At a glance
Purpose
Day-of-operations disruption recovery
Trigger
Automatic on operational alerts, or one click from the alert panel
Window
Rolling operational window, three hours back to operational period ahead
Delay control
Maximum delay bound, penalties per flight and per passenger-hour, delay codes
Scenarios
Three per run: base, low delay/high swap, high delay/low swap
Scoring
Automatic KPIs including alert count before and after
Platform
Part of FlightTime by PDC
Frequently asked questions
Does it act without a human?
Only as far as you configure. Automatic triggering and automatic apply are options; controllers can equally run everything one click at a time from the alert panel.
How does it avoid making the disruption worse?
Every delay is bounded by a maximum you set and priced per flight and per passenger-hour, so the solver trades swaps against delay in figures you control.
Does it consider crew?
The solver can penalise breaking crew connections or be set to follow the crew solution, keeping aircraft recovery aligned with the crew plan.
See it run on your own operation
See your own flying, fleet and schedule optimised.
Contact PDC to book a demonstration of one or more optimisers, or to see the full pipeline from pairings through to day-of-operations recovery.